


Lift Your Eyes and Let Me In ('Cause Baby I'm an Alien Like You)

by tisfan



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 80's Music, First Kiss, M/M, Rollerskates, date
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-11-04 14:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10992498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony and Peter go on a date on Peter's last night on earth





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title and inspiration come from the song Alien like You by the Pigott Brothers https://youtu.be/5UciYRrltZ0

Tony Stark parked the car off the side of a side road. The pavement there was broken and cracked; flowers and weeds and in one case, a young poplar tree grew up through the rubble. The engine ticked, cooling slowly in the summer air. A moment later, Peter Quill hopped out of his side of the car. For someone who was as technologically advanced as Peter, he still had a lot of trouble with door handles. At the same time, he was quick to slap Tony’s hand away if Tony tried to open the door for him.

“I ain’t your prom date, Stark,” he’d said the first time. Tony had laughed at the joke at the time. And eventually they had gone on not just one, but several dates. But Tony had never tried to open Peter’s door for him again, either. Some disappointments weren’t worth risking a second time.

Peter skipped over the holes in the pavement, jumping over some of the larger plants, and generally acting like a child. Tony smiled; Peter was, in no way, an innocent, but he’d also never been raised with the idea of adult dignity. His weird, quirky behavior was put down to “being Terran” and therefore, at least on the outside, he’d never grown up.

Tony liked that about him, really. The expectation of dignity was one of the worst parts of being an adult; free only to let your imagination and enthusiasm run wild if you were cheering on a sports team or drinking heavily. No wonder Tony’s liver was constantly crying “abuse.”

“So, what are we doing tonight?” Peter came up beside him and slid an arm around Tony’s waist, three fingers of his left hand slipping into Tony’s back pocket.

Tony leaned against his friend, soaking up the heat that Peter was putting out. There was something about Peter that always made Tony feel… young. Renewed, somehow.

Mantis claimed it was the remnant of “the light” inside Peter, the light that had died when Peter and his friends had been forced to destroy Ego; Peter’s father (and world-killing, avatar of a living planet, but Tony prefered to leave those details out as being too big to consider.) Peter wasn’t human, not entirely. But he was human enough for love, for grief.

Tony was finding out that those things weren’t unique to humans, either. Mantis, Gamora, even Drax… and that wasn’t even getting into such weirdness as a sentient, bio-teched racoon and a sapient, angry sapling.

“I thought we could do something… very Terran,” Tony said. The road gave way to a large clearing. Even now, the forest was closing in on it. Trees grew all the way up to the edge of what had once been a grocery store. It was now just a large cement slab where a building used to be and a destroyed parking lot. What remained of the store was a steel frame that had once supported the roof.

Tony tapped his watch and Friday turned on the power. He’d had dozens, hundreds, really, of strands of Christmas lights wrapped around the steel girders, set to twinkle and glitter, lighting up the area like a million fireflies. A few disco balls set in strategic locations sent glittering sparkles to dance across the floor.

The music rumbled a moment before the easy, cheesy beat of Madonna floated on the evening breeze.   

“This is… wow, Tony,” Peter said. He stared at the lights, grin eating up his face.

“Come on,” Tony said, tugging at Peter’s arm.

“There’s more?”

 _God_ , Tony loved him. Some lights, a little mood music, and Peter was _happy_ with that. He was fucking delighted. It was like dating a kid at Christmas, every single day.

“Something special, for your last night on Earth,” Tony said.

“Not last night ever,” Peter protested. “Just for this trip. Can’t really get units, workin’ this side of the galaxy. The Milano needs fuel to run and I can’t buy that here, either.”

“I know,” Tony said. He sat down on a chunk of cement and picked up a pair of brilliant blue roller skates with gold markings. “Here, these are for you.” His own skates were red and gold.

“Oh flark, Tony,” Peter said, face lighting up to rival the strings of illumination. “ _Roller skates_?”

Tony laughed and started strapping on the footwear. “Do you know how to skate?”

Peter shucked his boots in a hurry. It was probably wrong of Tony to find the fact that Peter had a hole in his sock cute, but he did and there was no one there to fuss anyway. “I done it once or twice,” Peter said. “When I’s just a kid.”

“Well, it’s not exactly like a bicycle,” Tony said, “but your balance is pretty good, most of the time. Let’s see you roll out, Optimus.”

Peter was already laughing and wobbling across the cement floor, the dazzling light flickering over his wide grin and perfect face as he scooched forward, bending in the middle the way people did when they had no idea what they were doing.

Tony, of course, knew roller skates like the back of his hand. He swung wide and circled backward, teasing. “Come on, baby duck,” he said, holding out his hands. Peter grabbed hold of his wrists with strong fingers and let Tony lead him on a wheeled dance, around and around the ruined grocery store.

The floor was almost as smooth as a skating rink and it had the advantage of not being in a public place. Keeping the Guardians out of the public eye had been priority one, ever since the Milano touched down in a field in Missouri. Peter was visiting in order to pay respects to his mother’s grave.

Their stealth tech was good enough that they probably would have gone completely unnoticed, except Groot had wandered into town, and there’d been a call and an alert, and Iron Man had gone out to investigate.

Once Tony was on the job of keeping everything under wraps, the Guardians had disappeared, melted into human society with the aid of a few photostatic veils and some cover stories.

Peter lost his human mother when he was eight, and then both his biological father and his adopted father in the same battle. Peter needed some time at home to find his center again.

Now it was time for the Guardians to get back to work.

Last night on Earth.

And sure, Tony suspected Peter _intended_ to come back.

But he also knew what intentions were. So… a little bit of razzle-dazzle and one last, perfect date. Maybe Tony would never be ready to say goodbye, but if he could, he’d give Peter a hell of a send-off and Peter would never know that part of Tony went with him.

The music was eighties pop; Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Duran Duran. Hits that were just breaking free when Peter left the planet. Not the stuff his mom had given him, not the stuff that Ego had tainted with his psycho-killer version of nostalgia, but the music from Peter’s childhood, from Tony’s teenage and early adulthood.

It didn’t take Peter long to get the hang of the skates, and the two of them moved in sync around the makeshift rink, holding hands, or doing tricks. Moving in time to the music.

One perfect night.

The music that Tony had selected came to an end and silence fell. A few lightning bugs tried to compete with the flashing Christmas lights.

“That was _amazing_ ,” Peter said.

“Not as amazing as you are, Starlord,” Tony said, touching his cheek.

Peter had mastered the skates. He launched off one foot and skated them backward until Tony’s back was against one of the pillars. Peter dropped his toe, holding them in place. He was deep in Tony’s personal space; heat radiated off his skin. Peter stroked one hand down Tony’s cheek, then suddenly cupped his hand on Tony’s jaw and his mouth came down. His face hovered over Tony’s for a long moment, waiting, watching.

The heat and desire swirled between them. They’d dated, but they’d never kissed. Not yet. Tony wanted to keep his heart unbroken one last time, but he was beginning to think that wasn’t going to be possible.

“Kiss me,” Tony said.

“You kiss me,” Peter challenged. Why, why could the man not just fill a simple request?

“I can’t,” Tony said, chest aching. Painful. Deep. “You know--”

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “I don’t know why you won’t love me, why you can’t love me.”

“It’s not that,” Tony protested, and still Peter didn’t move away, didn’t stop staring at Tony’s mouth.

“So you can love me,” Peter said, soft, “you just _won’t_.”

“That’s not… that’s not what this is,” Tony said. “I… you’re _leaving_.”

“And I love you,” Peter said.

“Still leaving,” Tony pointed out. Fuck, his heart was going to break anyway, and there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Kiss me anyway.”

Warm, firm, Peter’s mouth was everything Tony wanted, needed. He threw caution away and kissed Peter with every bit of longing and desire that he had left. Tony had never been one to stint on a kiss before, he wasn’t about to start now. Even when they’d meant nothing to him, Tony liked to kiss, he liked to be desired for his kisses.

Tony opened himself up to Peter’s questing tongue, the tease of his lips, until he was hardly aware of anything else.

Peter replied to Tony’s need with a fire of his own, his groans and soft sounds saying everything he needed to. His tongue traced over Tony’s lip, then down his jaw, tickled at the tendons of Tony’s neck, and then nipped along Tony’s collarbone. His hands went into Tony’s hair, sending tingles down his scalp and into his spine. His mouth told pretty stories of how he could do this forever, of how he could never tire of the taste of Tony’s skin, and how he could never completely abandon Tony’s mouth.

Tony couldn’t let him go. His arms wrapped around Peter’s back, nails dug into his shirt, pulling him closer, tighter. Then he was shaking with need, desire. Love.

Never had he felt this much before. Never this much.

“Come with us,” Peter said, finally dragging his mouth away. “Come with us, Tony, come… come with me. I’ll show you the galaxy.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flat, silver disc.

“What is that?”

“Space-suit,” Peter said. “It’ll protect you, keep you breathing. Carry it with you, all the time. I know… I know, Tony. I know you’re scared. But… I can’t stay.”

Tony… stared at the silver disc, about the size of a CD, little thicker. “ _That’s_ a space suit?”

“We do things a little different in my neck of the woods,” Peter said. “But the roller skates are cool, too.”

“You really want me to go with you?”

“I really want _you_ ,” Peter stressed. “I can’t stay, but there’s no reason you can’t go.”

Tony closed his fingers around the disc. There was… no reason he couldn’t go.

“All right, Starlord,” Tony said, raising his face for another kiss. “Show me the universe. But first, take me to bed.”


	2. And Tell Me Did Venus Blow Your Mind (Was it Everything You Wanted To Find?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Tony go on a date...
> 
> In space.
> 
> Space is terrifying.

And Tell Me Did Venus Blow Your Mind

(Was it everything you wanted to find)

So, space was terrifying.

Not that Tony didn’t know that. Not that he didn’t realize that before he said goodbye to everything that he knew to venture out into the unknown.

Well, unknown to him. Peter and the rest of the Milano’s crew were pretty familiar with space. Although any of them (including Peter, who was actually a Terran and it might have been nice if he remembered that sometimes before commenting on how backwater Terra was) would have said that Terra was alien and unfamiliar. Not a part of the larger galaxy. Just a tiny little planet that really, no one noticed or cared much about.

That was both humbling and weirdly soothing at the same time. Tony Stark on Terra: Big Deal. Tony Stark in the wider galaxy: Non-entity.

“I’ve never been a nobody before,” Tony commented. He was sitting in what Peter called the copilot’s chair, but his hands were well away from the controls. A copilot was seldom necessary and Gamora had already told him that she’d bodily rip him from the chair and throw him across the ship if a copilot was required. Drax had laughed at that, Rocket had made some disparaging comments about humies and their inability to function like normal people, and did he know what a pencil was, which was just rude, and pretty much par for the course as far as Rocket was concerned. Groot announced that, once again, he was Groot.

“You’re not _nobody_ ,” Peter insisted. “You’re Star Lord’s consort. That makes you somebody. Just somebody to a very small, select group of highly unstable people.”

“Well, that sounds about like home, yeah,” Tony said. He couldn’t help but smile at that. _Boyfriend_. It was a nice word. And Peter, unlike everyone else Tony had ever been claimed by, didn’t care about all the rest of the baggage that went with dating Tony Stark. Playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, genius, superhero, merchant of death. None of that was important to someone who was, as Rocket said, a two-time galaxy savior.

Tony was keeping his eyes on Peter’s hands as he moved the various knobs and levers, punched buttons and flipped switches. There were four screens, solid-light or some similar tech. For a spaceship, the Milano was a little _retro_. The stick was like sticks for ships and planes everywhere that Tony had ever seen. Roll, pitch, yaw, and go.

“Does it take long to learn to pilot?” Tony asked. He still hadn’t looked out the front window, keeping his gaze firm fixed below the ship’s dash.

“Yondu taught me to fly when I was ten,” Peter said. “I was piloting the Milano on solo missions at thirteen. Now, most of that was because I had the patience of a Nartilibian, and about as much sense, so I kept stealin’ M ships and running off with ‘em. Might also had somethin’ to do with how Yondu kept threatening to let the crew eat me, if I kept misbehaving. I’m almost positive that was a joke. But the almost is still a bit worrisome.”

Tony blinked. “Is that a thing that happens?”

Peter shrugged, which wasn’t exactly reassuring. “Hasn’t happened to me, but there aren’t so many Terrans in the galaxy that we exactly have equal representation at a council hearing or anything. Who’s gonna argue?”

“There aren’t laws against that sort of thing?”

“Well, that depends on whether or not you consider humies to be intelligent life forms or not,” Rocket said, coming up behind them. “Some of us do not.”

Tony hid a smile behind his hand, scratching at his beard. Rocket did not like it when he thought Tony wasn’t taking him seriously enough, and Rocket was also pretty damned disgusted by Terra’s lack of scientific advancement. Even the Iron Man suit -- which Tony had upgraded to be space-worthy before they’d left -- was bulky and pointless, as far as the raccoon was concerned. Of course, calling Rocket a raccoon was asking for more trouble, but since it was trouble that Peter appeared to delight in _anyway_ , Tony allowed himself to slip up. From time to time.

“So, Quill, we’re uh, within a few jumps of landing on Archeopia, right?” Drax asked. He was hanging in the pilot’s bay, one hand on the main support-strut.

“Yes, Drax,” Peter said, carefully. “That was, indeed, on the list. Delivery of four hundred barrels of sunflower seeds, Terran-grown. As requested, and I might add, prepaid for delivery, so please tell me that you did not come up here to tell me that, I don’t know, Groot’s decided they’re long-lost kin or something?”

“I did not come up here to tell you that Groot’s adopted the seedlings,” Drax said, dutifully. “I am here to tell you that sunflower seeds are delicious. And also, if you spin the barrel around really really fast in the gravity room, it makes a wonderful pasty substance that can be eaten between slices of bread.”

Peter groaned. “How many?”

“Two.”

“Not slices of bread, you hulking portable stomach. How many barrels did you eat?”

Drax belched, loudly. “Six.”

“Well, I suppose that’s an improvement,” Peter said, tipping his head back and forth. “Don’t eat any more of it, though.” He sighed as Drax wandered off. “One day, just one trip, one job, one… _hour_.”

“I’ll pencil you in for an hour, after dinner,” Tony suggested, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Peter grinned. “I actually do have you pencilled in for dinner, and after dinner. Archeopia’s a nice planet, very scenic. I thought… we might have a picnic.”

That was going hand in hand with some of Tony’s earlier dates with Quill, all simple stuff that he could manage without having access to the Stark Fortune in space. Hard to wine and dine a guy when he was your meal ticket, Tony thought, trying to avoid squirming in the co-pilot’s chair, feeling just a little guilty about it.

“Tell me about the planet,” Tony suggested.

Quill waxed poetic for a while; Archeopia’s main population were aviary folk; they’d been through some pretty terrible things, including being tracked down and slaughtered by Peter’s father, which was how Peter ended up discovering them in the first place. Tony knew a little bit about trying to make up for a father’s sins.

“Technically, this isn’t their original planet, the original one was destroyed centuries ago, but some of them were out wandering -- that’s what the space-faring group of them calls themselves, the Wanderers. Kinda like Ronin or something, that’s cool, right?”

“Yeah, Angry Birds in Space,” Tony agreed. “It’s cool. Totally a thing.”

“But they picked this one because it’s just… wild and overgrown, and there’s lots of trees. I thought it’d be a good place for a picnic,” Peter went on. He touched Tony’s wrist, rubbed his thumb gently over the pulse point. “Want to show you the galaxy, sunshine.”

Tony couldn’t help but hum into Peter’s touch; there was something about that thumb on his wrist that felt intimate, a private caress that Peter did, no matter where they were. No matter who they were standing in front of. Tony had to admit, he liked it.

***

There were things Tony knew about space and extraterrestrial planets and then there were things that he’d been told. And then there were things he had to learn about the hard way.

Gravity.

That was a thing.

Now, Tony was perfectly aware that different planetary densities and size would make for different gravities; what he hadn’t accounted for was that there were personal graviton devices. Peter had given him one, the first time they’d docked the Milano. The disc stuck to the back of Tony’s neck, interacted with the gravity on whatever planet they were on, and adjusted it for earth-norm, so he could walk, breathe, and generally be able to operate as normal -- some species who were more space-faring than his own had used the various gravities to their advantage; heavy gravity planet aliens were stronger and denser than Terrans.

And while Tony’s gravity wasn’t the lightest out there, earth-normal was less than the average. Earth was a tiny, backwater planet…

And he’d adjusted; not worried about it too much.

Right up until he was on Archeopia, which had a very light gravity. With a population that flew, so they hadn’t bothered to develop or install the graviton fields that allowed Tony’s disc to _work_.

When Tony stumbled under the light gravity, he’d launched himself off the side of the flet where they’d docked. Which was supremely bad, since the flet was a good eighty stories up, at least, and while the gravity was light, he would still fall eventually. And he’d already been warned that the jungle under the canopy was a dangerous place, filled with wild and poisonous beasts.

Peter’d been forced to rescue him; diving after Tony with those rocket boots on, red leather coat flapping in the breeze. He’d looked like a space angel to Tony as he dropped into position and caught Tony up in a princess carry.

“My hero,” Tony said, with a nervous burst of laughter.

“Hey, sunshine,” Peter said. “You want me to carry you over the threshold, all you gotta do is ask.”

Tony was going to very carefully not think about that for a while; he was still enjoying the novelty of having a boyfriend that actually seemed to like him. Pepper had been great, but she was always exasperated with him and his antics. Steve… well, the less he thought about that, the happier Tony was going to be. Peter was different. He didn’t seem to mind anything, found Tony endlessly fascinating and amusing, and what was even weirder, he didn’t laugh at Tony when Tony wasn’t trying to be funny, which was a real switch up.

“I feel like Wendy in Peter Pan,” Tony complained, changing the subject.

Peter smirked. “I’ll never grow up.” And then he kissed Tony while they were flying, spinning them around in dizzying circles until Tony was clinging to him and panting for breath, legs wrapped around Peter’s hips.

The second thing he learned the hard way was that all alien food was not created equal.

Tony wasn’t sure how he could have forgotten to worry about that; Pepper, for instance, was allergic to strawberries, which was an earth person, unable to eat a food from earth. How messed up was that? He’d passed on some of the more exotic fare that Peter had tried to interest him in; anything that moved, wriggled, or was in some _still alive_ while it was being eaten. (Drax in particular had a fondness for _flarn_ , a writhing mass of something green and chewy and the less Tony thought about that, the better able he was to keep from heaving into the nearest trash receptacle.)

But plants, and the meats of some of the various planetary life-forms had been acceptable. He never ate anything that Peter didn’t also eat, which seemed safe. Mostly.

Except that it wasn’t, and apparently Tony was somewhat allergic to a meat-product called spoo, a pale blueish meat that had roughly the same consistency of tofu and was insanely delicious. And made Tony break out into unattractive patches of greenish rash across his throat and torso. He also started gasping for air and they had to cut their picnic short for a trip to the somewhat dubious comfort of the local hospital.

Or, whatever passed for it, thereabouts.

The medic; a brawny canary-yellow bird man, complete with feathers, beak and clawed feet, supposedly had studied some xeno-biology, but the first few treatment options actually made things worse, until Tony was covered in boils and vomiting every other hour. Gamora had rolled her eyes a few times and placed a call to the Nova medics on Xander. She and Rocket mixed a few things up, injected Tony in the ass with a needle the size of a screwdriver, which seemed really unnecessary, and given that Rocket was involved, Tony wasn’t quite sure it was accidental, but at least it cleared everything up in about an hour.

And the day might not have been a complete wash, except that apparently rumor had spread that Starlord was in port.

They were just headed back to the Milano, Tony leaning heavily on his boyfriend’s arm, when Peter brightened. “Delara?”

A blue-skinned woman with leathery scalp-tendrils was waiting for them, leaning on the wall outside the ship’s port. “Peter!” She strode over and hauled back, slapping Peter across the face, hard enough that Tony staggered and nearly fell over.

“Nice to see you, too,” Peter snapped, adjusting his jaw.

“Asshole,” she spat, and flounced away.

Peter watched her go, then shrugged, not even embarrassed. “Pretty sure I deserved that.”

A moment later, another -- woman? Person? Tony wasn’t sure, he’d never quite seen an alien like that, all tentacley and green and -- yelled at them. Peter groaned. “Lorrrrr’sa, darlin’,” he started, and the alien backhanded (back tentacled?) him with several limbs.

“Mighta deserved that, too,” Peter said. He shook his head, a series of little red welts popping up on his cheek where the suckers had gotten him.

“You’re very… popular,” Tony commented, dryly.

“Yeah, well,” Peter said -- was he blushing? “What can I say? I was waiting for you, but I wasn’t doing it alone.”

Tony laughed. “You don’t have to apologize to me for having your wild oats. I’m the very last person to complain about a thing like that.”

“At least you never banged an A’askvarian,” Peter said, gesturing back toward the octopoid. “You would not believe the places they have _teeth_.”

“Quill!” Another angry, female voice, and Peter turned, catching someone’s arm before they slapped him.

“No, Nebula,” Peter said. He shook her arm a few times and threw her backward. “Not from you. Go bother your sister. What are you even _doing_ here?”

The woman, a blue-skinned cyborg with no hair, scowled at him, all teeth and anger. “I need a ride.”

“Oh, well, fuck, of course you can come on board, you psycho hose beast.”

“Thank you.” She stalked off toward the Milano.

“I didn’t mean it!” Peter cried after her, but she was already onboard.

“Gamora’s sister?” Tony guessed. He hadn’t met Nebula, but he’d certainly heard about her before, adopted daughter of Thanos, trauma for days, and a streak of I want to hurt Someone and I don’t Particularly Care Who It Is a mile wide.

“Yeah, she’s… a real sweetheart,” Peter said, in a voice that meant anything but. “You’ll like her.”

“I’m sure,” Tony said. They boarded the ship and Peter helped Tony back into their bunk, pulling the blankets down and all but tucking him in like a toddler.

“Sunshine,” Peter started, brushing a tangle of his brown curls out of his face, “look, I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“Worst. Date. Ever.”

Tony laughed. “Oh, honey, you don’t even come close,” he said. “It’s been a rough day, I’ll give you that, but… in the end, I’m still in space. And I’m still with you. And you, honey, you rock my world.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “That’s a good thing?”

“That’s a good thing,” Tony said. “Now kiss me goodnight and we’ll try to make tomorrow better.”

Peter kissed him, tentative at first, as if he was still somehow afraid that Tony was going to reject him. God knew, it had been a bad day, a bad date, but that didn’t make Peter a bad boyfriend. Tony knew the difference. Peter was still there, still wanting to make things better, still wanting to be with Tony, no matter how high maintenance Tony was. He kissed like Tony was some fragile, dissolvable thing that might vanish at any moment.

Passion swirled to life in the few inches between their bodies and Tony pulled Peter closer, relishing the feel of Peter’s heat, the solid chest, strong arms, smooth skin. He let his hands wander, touching Peter’s back, his throat, the side of his face. It wasn’t enough, it was never enough. Peter was all masculine energy, human enthusiasm, and alien novelty all at once. Something Tony would never want to be without.

“Starlord,” he murmured, tempting Peter’s mouth into falling open, letting his tongue slip between Peter’s lips. “My starlord.” His fingers ached for the feel of Peter’s bare skin under him, over him, any way he could get it.

Peter was like the very best sort of temptation. Tony hadn’t had a drop of alcohol in the last three years, at least, but he was drunk on Peter’s taste. It was love; it had to be.

“You gonna blow my mind, sunshine?” Peter drew back a little, grinning.

“Among other things, yes.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flarn and spoo are both foods from Babylon 5. It amuses me to mix my shows, sometimes...


End file.
